Archive for Learning from the Earth/Nature

Yesterday my neighbor across the street called me up in the middle of the afternoon.

“You want to see something really bizarre? ” he said. “Well, maybe not bizarre…there’s a Robin caught in the apricot tree, would you come over and help me get her loose? She’s tangled up in some string.”

Of course I went right over after making sure I had a clean, soft cotton handkerchief in my pocket.

At first, I couldn’t see Ms Robin. (Yes, both of us called the Robin ‘she’, so…) Underneath the almost ripe apricots hanging here and there from the bowed branch, a large Robin was hanging with one leg hooked around a small dead twig. At first we thought she was pinned to the tree by the twig, her leg pierced at the joint.She was very quiet at the moment, panting heavily, her chest heaving and her eyes looking as if they were slightly bulging.

Then, detecting a new presence, she started to beat her wings as hard as possible, working herself off of the twig until she hung at another odd angle from the branch. Now I could see the very tiny string, more like a thread really, wound around both of her feet at the ankle, and wound around the small branch of the tree. It must have been a plastic fiber because even though it was very slender, she couldn’t free herself. Although no bigger than a decent sized cobweb strand, it just wouldn’t break no matter how hard she struggled.

Maybe we could lop off the branch and then untangle her? As my neighbor went to find pruners or something, I just kept watching Ms Robin, holding the handkerchief in my hand. I wanted to wrap her up in the cloth so that she would stop struggling. If I could hold her around the wings, then we could see what needed to be done without hurting her.

I started doing a little hummy noise under my breath and focused on carefully moving closer while she was trying to untangle herself. She was almost out of her mind already, so I just wanted to sooth her and calm her down. Suddenly she stopped moving and was hanging directly upside down under the branch.

I reached forward quickly with the handkerchief between my hands and surrounded her terrified little body. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but she was quiet. I asked my friend for scissors as I tried to loosen the thread around her tough little ankles with my pinkies while waiting. I kept murmuring to her, hoping it would be a comfort, and praying it wasn’t making it worst.

My friend carefully snipped the tiny bits of super strong thread that held Ms Robin to the branch. Then he clipped what threads he could without cutting the leathery skin on her ankles and finally her feet were free! I walked out from under the overhanging branches of the apricot tree and gently tossed Robin up in the air. She made it to the top of the wooden fence next door in a couple of wing beats.

We watched her sit still, with her beak open, panting from the exertion and fright of being bound to a tree. A dish of water was set out close by, but not so close as to scare her further. After awhile, I went home. She wasn’t moving from that fence until she gathered her strength back and I didn’t want her to worry about my presence.

Come and join with other women in a MOON LODGE once a month during the New Moon. This will be a Dreaming Circle where we learn how to dream our own best life into being, share dreaming with our lodge of dreamers, and join in the dreaming with other Moon Lodges across the continent.

We dream and intend our next month on the New Moon. This is the time of the pregnant void, the darkness where all dissolves and all is created. This is the perfect time for women to connect with their beauty and power within themselves and each other.

If you feel drawn to join in ceremony and community with women at the New Moon, this is the Sacred Space to do that in. We, the women, are to help create the next world of peace and harmony by supporting each other, supporting our community, and supporting the world. We do this best in a group.

The first meeting of the Horse Dream Circle of the Sisters of Honua Project will be Monday night, January 23, 2012 on the New Moon. We will meet from 6:45 pm to 8:45 pm at For Heaven’s Sake, 4900 West 46th Avenue, Denver, CO 80212. There is a suggested donation of $15.00 per evening, although no one is turned away.

This will be a powerful and joyful way to dream 2012! Come enjoy the Beauty Way!

The pale cold skies of January always bring me thoughts of the dense comfort foods of mid-Winter. I started off the New Year with these in my belly, and that feels good! Oatmeal cooked with diced apples and raisins filled the kitchen this morning with delicious smells. It got even better with the addition of chopped pecans (from Ridge Spring, SC – thanks cousin Joe Cal Watson), cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of ginger. I eat this with a sterling cereal spoon that belonged to my Great Grandmother Kate Hyde Sloan. There’s a crack in it I was always warned to be careful about, and I have been, for over 60 years. This oatmeal was so good, I ate small bites for a long time!

Lunch was as good – if not better! A bowl of rice and spicy baked butter beans (or lima beans) is still warm in my belly. These are not summer foods for me. They are too dense and heavy for the deep heat and light clothes of summer. And that reminds me of a question a friend from California asked me: “What is seasonal eating ?”

She was referring specifically to being able to buy strawberries in November where she lives. What an interesting question! I’ve spent time thinking about this, because it is different for different parts of our broad, wide country. And yet, there are similarities as well.

In the broadest terms, eating seasonally means eating what is ripe and ready, at that moment, in your locale. It means seeing foods in their freshest state come and go from your menu. It means paying attention to the local farmers world around you day by day. And it means listening to your body and it’s demands. California will be different than New York, Minnesota will be different than Texas.

Here in an area where there are four very distinct seasons it is much more obvious: yummy cold hardy leafy greens in the Spring are an ecstatic addition to any meal at the end of Winter! However it is more than that. During the growing season we eat all of the fresh foods we can, sometimes gorging ourselves with the bounty. The surplus gets dried, frozen, pickled, cured, preserved, canned, smoked, fermented, hung in the pantry or put in a root cellar for the Winter. As one of my Canadian friends said in his Year End letter: “Our search for food these days is fairly simple. What we have is stored in our pantry although there is a stray turnip or two under the foot of snow that finally arrived.” [Thank you, Graham!]

Our bodies have spent millennium adapting and adjusting to what is available, when, and what is not. We have long histories of ‘putting foods by’ so that we have enough to eat all of the time. The temperature and the light tell the cells in our bodies that there is a change in the seasons and we get ready for it. Growing up in a cold winter climate in an uninsulated farm house established a pattern in my body that the first true cold snap brings on. When there is skim ice on the water, my taste for winter foods kicks in – casseroles, baking, hearty soups, and steaming cups of spiced cider. I gain ten pounds each winter (except when I lived in Tucson) and lose it in the Spring once the weather gets warm. I’m used to it. My body obviously needs it. I don’t keep a scale!

My body is primed for seasonal eating, and now that I have added wild foods to my diet, it all makes so much more sense! At the end of winter, there are a few shriveled apples, potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips and parsnips. The garlic and onions are sprouting, and the pantry is becoming full of empty jars. When those first sprouts of green emerge, be they dandelions, wood sorrel, green onions, or lambsquarters, I want them! My body craves them to help purge the heavy winter foods from my body. I don’t want the tomatoes of high summer at that moment, I want new peas, asparagus and strawberries, and the wild baby greens that help me regain my summer figure!

Think of the time and money you save by only going to the store once a week for a few staples. It’s so much simpler once you remember to think about your food ahead of time. Just before bed grab something out of the freezer, put a cup of dried beans in to soak, and even soak the grains for a morning bowl of hot cereal in apple juice or cider! That’s ‘instant’ oatmeal that really counts! If you are not shopping on the way home, you have another 30 minutes to cook an outstanding evening meal.

So think ahead; make menus or find them on line; keep track of the seasons; and have a bright and abundant New Year!